


Mending Black Wings

by Cegorach



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: But not super slow because I have ADHD, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cegorach/pseuds/Cegorach
Summary: Two years ago, Jenna hunted down and killed Uldren Sov for the death of Cayde-6. Now, she finds him again, broken and bound in the clutches of the Spider with no memory of his past sins. She used to hate him but after seeing his current state, all she can feel is pity.Has Uldren really changed? Is this Crow a force of good now? Only time will tell.
Relationships: Female Guardian/Uldren Sov, The Crow/Female Guardian
Kudos: 26





	Mending Black Wings

**Author's Note:**

> This work contains spoilers for both Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt

As Jenna’s feet touched down on the surface of the moon, she breathed out. Flying was always stressful and even with Thread, her Ghost, at the helm it still didn’t feel safe. As if he could sense her thinking about him, Thread appeared in front of her.

“We need to move!”

“I know, I know, just give me a moment,” Jenna said, pushing him away with her hand.

She took a moment to calm her breathing before slinging her SMG onto her back and jogging towards the distant Hive ruins, Thread floating along in her wake.

“I’m worried about Osiris,” he began, “If Sagira’s gone and something happens to him… I-”

“Don’t worry about me,” the exiled Warlock cut in, “I believed I was tracking Sagira’s murderer. But Xiva Arath’s High Celebrant has decided that it is hunting me instead. Give me a moment.”

The sounds of a rifle being fired and the screaming of Thrall filled Jenna’s helmet as she passed through the doorway to the Hall of Wisdom.

“Meet me in the Hall of-”

Something else burst into the frequency, interrupting whatever Osiris was going to say.

“Your friend is in a lot of danger!”

“This is an official Vanguard frequency!” Thread warned, “State who you are and what your business is.”

“I’m a concerned Ghost. We’re here to save Osiris, he shouldn’t be here in his condition.”

“We?”

“My… my Guardian and I.”

“Either help us or stay out of our way, we’re in a rush. Osiris are you still there?”

There was no answer from the Warlock or the mysterious Ghost.

Jenna readied her submachine gun, spraying waves of bullets towards a group of incoming Thrall and slaying them. As a Knight sprinted towards her, she switched to her shotgun, one blast splintering the shield he held in front of him and the next sending him backward into the wall. She hissed as the claws of a Thrall bit into her back before spinning around and lobbing a smoke bomb into its face, blinding it and causing it to stumble backwards.

“I'm glad you're no longer wielding the Darkness…” said Thread as he began to heal her wounds.

"I know Elsie said we could use it for good... but to let it back in yet... the way it makes me feel so empty... so... cold.”

Osiris rejoined the channel, “Hunter- Jenna! I’m luring the High Celebrant to the Shrine of Oryx! It erected a barrier, break through it!”

She paused to look around to see if there was a way to bring down the barrier, briefly glancing at a totem made of Hive chitin and sorcery.

“Thread,” she commanded, “go scan that.”

Her Ghost complied, flitting around the pillar and barraging it with beams of blue energy for a few minutes.

“It’s… talking to me?” he pondered at last.

“Nothing it says is any good,” she admonished, “stop listening to it and come here, I think I know how we are going to bring down this barrier.”

Thread turned around to look at a second wave of Hive pouring towards them. He flew towards Jenna, disappearing back into her armor as she sprung into the air, body filling with Void energy until it was forced out, forming two blades of Void light and cloaking her body in shadows.

She lunged towards a Witch, her blade slicing through its shield and into its flesh, cutting it in half. Jenna spun in the air, pulling energy from the blades to cloak herself once more, rolling around a group of confused Thralls before cutting down a Knight and its Acolytes. With the most dangerous Hive gone, she pushed all of her remaining energy into the Spectral Blades, quickly scything through the Thralls. When the last of the Hive was slain, the dark barrier dissipated into ribbons of shadow and she stepped into the Shrine of Oryx.

“I hate this place…” complained Thread.

Jenna said nothing, bringing up her submachine gun to shoot down two Thralls running at her.

“Jenna, I’ve fallen back further into the shrine. The High Celebrant is pursuing me!”

“Hang on Osiris!” yelled Thread, “We’re almost there!”

“Listen, this is important. The totem you saw out there. It’s a cryptolith. A dimensional anchor that has allowed Xivu Arath to deploy troops and indoctrinate others. It’s a conduit for darkness. If I don’t make it out of here, I need you to tell Saint-”

“We’ll get you out,” affirmed Thread.

Jenna continued forward, rounding a corner and coming face to face with the High Celebrant itself. She fired off a burst of shots at it, dismayed but not surprised to see them ricochet off of its barriers. It laughed at her, disappearing into a pillar of green flame and reappearing down the corridor as Hive flooded in from the adjacent chambers. Fighting through the tide, she continued to chase it down until it vanished for good, a portal to the Ascendant realm opening in its place.

With no other way to get forward, she stepped through the portal, appearing in the Ascendant realm, debris and darkness swirling around her. Other portals around her opened up and Acolytes ran out, firing their weapons and magic at her. Jenna rolled out of the way, throwing a grenade that sent up a wall of purple fire in front of her. As they were forced back by the blaze, she reloaded her weapons before jumping over the fire and slamming her gun into the nearest Acolyte. It reeled backward and she killed it with a pull of the trigger. Whirling to face another group, she sprayed the rest of the magazine at them and jumped to the next platform, switching to her shotgun to deal with the Witch hovering in front of her. As its body exploded around her blast, she slid forward, firing two more shells into the Acolytes behind it. She noticed a portal back into the material world opening up ahead of her and ran through it. Appearing back into the real world, she fell to her knees with the usual bout of nausea that came from crossing back.

“You’re here! Finally!” Osiris called from the floor above her.

“Yes... give me a second,” she answered, slowly crawling to her feet.

As she raised her head, she noticed a Knight looming behind Osiris and yelled in warning. Before she could even bring her gun up to shoot it, the Knight slammed into Osiris, sending him backward and causing his rifle to fly off the edge to clatter by Jenna’s feet. She fired her submachine gun at it but it brushed off the bullets, raising its sword above its head to end the Ghostless Guardian’s life.

The Knight screamed as the point of a sword broke through its chest, the chitin and flesh around the wound crumbling into ash as it fell away to nothingness. With the last of its body vanishing, a hooded figure behind it was revealed. A Ghost materialized in front of their shoulder and spoke.

“We warned you it was going to be dangerous down here!”

His gaze moved to Osiris.

“Especially for the Ghostless… I’m- I’m glad to see we’re all okay though.”

The Ghost flew forward until it could peer over the ledge at Jenna below.

“I’m Glint by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

Osiris grunted and slowly climbed to his feet while Thread materialized.

“I’m Thread. This is Jenna. Thanks for the assist.”

She nodded while her gaze turned to the shrouded Guardian. Glint followed it, turning around and whirling around the Guardian’s hooded head.

“Go on, introduce yourself.”

The Guardian weakly brushed Glint away from their head, stepping forward until their face was in the light.

“They call me the Crow,” said Uldren Sov.

If Jenna wasn’t so shocked, she’d have had her gun up and fired as many shots as she could into his chest. Instead, all she could do was stare at the monster who had killed one of her best friends. The monster that she had hunted down and killed two years ago.

Uldren Sov was a Guardian now.

Her further thoughts were interrupted when he spoke once more, his voice sounding so unfamiliar without the arrogance she had known it to contain before.

“My boss wants to see you.”

* * *

As she followed his jumpship through the warp between the Dreaming City and the Reef, Jenna asked herself once again why she hadn’t just blasted his ship into pieces.

While she knew that missiles wouldn’t work within the strange space, that wasn’t the only reason she wasn’t shooting at him.

“You’re thinking about shooting him aren’t you?” asked Thread from his spot next to her captain’s seat.

She turned her helmless head to him, brushing some of her long, dark brown hair out of her face.

“Yeah, you could say I’m considering it.”

“Under any other circumstances, I’d agree with you…”

“But?”

“But he’s a Guardian now whether we like it or not. And we both know that he has no memory of his past life.”

“He still has the same flesh, that’s enough for me.”

“You… you can’t kill him. He’s one of us now.”

“That- that monster will never be one of us!” she shouted, her voice cracking towards the end.

Thread hovered towards her, lightly bumping his shell against her chest as her body shook, tears beginning to creep down her face.

“He took _everything_ from us.”

“No… Jenna… you still have so much…”

She reached forward, hugging Thread to her body as her light crying turned to sobs. It was as if seeing his face had dredged up all of those memories and feelings that she had spent so long locking away.

There was a flash of light as the two ships broke out of the warp, the minute differences in the navigation computers setting them dozens of miles away from each other. Her ship followed his towards the purple scar of the Tangled Shore, its system slaved to his own.

She watched as his ship landed by the Spider’s Safehouse, too far away to see his figure as he headed inside.

As her own jumpship landed next to his, Jenna took a moment to breathe in, trying to wipe the trails of mascara that had run down her face away with a gloved hand but having little success.

Groaning, she placed her helmet on and pulled up the hood to her cloak, sealing her sorrow away in the silence of her armor as Thread transmatted her out of the ship. Without even looking at her surroundings, Jenna started towards the squat buildings of the Spider’s complex.

Silently, she stepped inside, moving past a group of green-quilled Eliksni who were carrying a large crate.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t be back here so soon,” Thread told her from his incorporeal state.

“Well, what choice do we have?” asked Jenna as one of the Spider’s associates stepped forward to collect her weaponry.

After handing it over she was led to the final door and ushered into his lair to find Uldren- now Crow talking to the Spider.

The Spider turned and looked at her.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my most favorite… well… _second_ most favorite guardian. What brings you to my shore?” he coughed.

Thread took that moment to materialize out of Jenna’s backpack.

“You know why we’re here Spider.”

The Spider’s guards at the sides of his throne bristled at the use of his name in such a casual manner without the “Baron” title but he waved them down.

“Regardless of how pleasant it is to see you,” he turned to face Crow, “I thought I told you to bring me Osiris.”

The Spider pointed at him in an accusing way and Crow recoiled, bowing his head and holding out his hands in a gesture of submission. 

It felt good to see how far Uldren had fallen after all he had done.

“I’m sorry my Baron. Osiris…”

Thread interrupted, “Osiris lost his Ghost. He’s gone back to the Tower.”

The Spider threw his head back and laughed causing Thread to rotate his shell in anger. He then leaned forward, weaving his fingers together in interest.

“You… Lightmongers never cease to amaze and amuse me. You deal violence so easily and suffer it in return so poorly. Such tedious killers. Regardless, you may leave Guardian, I have no use for you.”

“We’ll finish what Osiris started,” said Jenna, stepping forward until she was next to Crow.

“Oh? And do tell me, what is that?”

“Slaying the High Celebrant and avenging Sagira.”

Uldren raised his hooded head and turned to look at her for the first time.

“I had the High Celebrant in my sights. If your friend hadn’t needed saving I would have-”

The Spider threw out his hand.

“You forget your place little bird.”

“Apologies my Baron,” he said, returning to his submissive state.

“I think I speak for all of us in this room when I say we know how… accomplished you are at exacting revenge,” he chortled.

“Xivu Arath and her High Celebrant are using those damned cryptoliths to corrupt _my_ associates. Do you know how much damage it’s causing me? I know what Osiris was doing and I know you’ll do it better given the… proper motivation. Leave us Crow. The Guardian and I have terms to discuss.”

Crow bowed even deeper before rising and walking toward a door on the side of the room. As it shut behind him, the Spider finally spoke once more.

“I have to imagine you share in my… appreciation of fate’s cruel sense of humor. My little bird sure is something, isn’t he?”

“Your?” Thread accused.

The Spider laughed. “Yes, mine. I found him, cast out of your city, wandering the Reef like a piece of wind-blown trash. Aimless… hopeless… No memory of the prince he was. Now, I could have sent him off to the Tower but… well, we all know what’s waiting for him there.”

“We didn’t even know he wa-”

The Spider held up his hand interrupting Thread.

“Ah-ah-ah. I’m doing him, and the Last City, a favor really. I couldn’t let such an important person go to waste... so I took him in. As a kindness.”

“You only saw an opportunity and you took it,” mumbled Thread.

Jenna reached out to quiet him and bowed her head to the don of the Tangled Shore.

“As for keeping him loyal and preventing him from flying back to your nest... I took a few extra _precautions_ and made some… modifications, if you will, to his Ghost’s shell. What’s its name? Glint? Such a pretty little shell. You can hardly notice the charged helium filaments and one way transceiver. It would be a shame if our Crow flew too far from me and something were to activate.”

It was Thread’s turn to bristle at the invasion of his cousin’s shell, and the threat held over Uldren’s head.

The Spider, of course, noticed this and laughed, the prolonged noise turning to a wet cough as he clutched at his ether rebreather. When he eventually recovered, the Spider spoke.

“That ugly business out of the way… let’s focus on what really matters: this Hive infestation. I want it off my shore. Get rid of it, I don’t care how you do it. I’ll throw in whatever you need to remove this… High Celebrant and its followers. Just don’t go mentioning the name Uldren Sov to anyone, especially your Vanguard. Or my little Crow… for his sake.”

With that, the Spider leaned back in his throne, taking a long breath of ether as another round of coughs racked his massive frame. With one hand he dismissively waved towards a passage to the left of the room and Jenna walked towards it, Thread following in her lead but keeping his eye on the Spider. The two of them only allowed themselves to relax once the door shut behind them.

  
  



End file.
